


whats leads up to missing someone

by whichlights



Series: games [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Autistic Loki (Marvel), F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Genderfluid Loki (Marvel), M/M, Other, in case u couldnt tell thor and loki's friendship is very important to me, oh look yet another loki on sakaar fic bc that hasnt been done a thousand times, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 15:30:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13837692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichlights/pseuds/whichlights
Summary: “What’s love like?”-Sequel to "knife games (and why you shouldn't play those kinds of games)" it's basically just a Loki on Sakaar fic idk man just get this thing out of my wip folder.





	whats leads up to missing someone

**Author's Note:**

> the doc title for this was "that dumbass sequel to knife games" if that gives you an idea of what this is about

The second the Grandmaster saw Loki, he was intrigued. He was kicking, yelling, and his eyes were blazing green with something the Grandmaster almost never saw-  _ defiance _ . He was blazing, like a fire. 

When he told the Grandmaster to fuck off, the Grandmaster was pretty sure he fell in love. 

He held the Grandmaster’s guards at knifepoint, and he was burning so bright and the Grandmaster didn’t want to look away. His guards subdued Loki again, and his eyes still burned with fire, now with added desperation as he looked at his knives. 

He told the Grandmaster to be careful with them. The Grandmaster decided those knives would survive the end of the universe. That’s how safe they would be. 

The Grandmaster talked to him the next day, and invited him to lunch, and Loki was still so defiant and the Grandmaster loved it, never wanted that fire to go out. 

Then she went to get her knives, and the Grandmaster had been curious to see if she could, and boy, could she! Topaz grabbed her, which was a little unnecessary, and the Grandmaster was smiling at the knives, and she was suddenly begging him not to hurt her, and then she was yelling at him that she was not a  _ toy _ .

_ “I think you’re interesting. Mysterious. Like a, uh, puzzle.” _

_ “And it’s not your  _ right _ to  _ solve _ me!” _

She lost that defiance. She had an edge, but she looked defeated. Loki had stalked away, crying, and told him to keep the knives she held so dear, and the Grandmaster looked in horror at Topaz and said, “I think I broke her.”

The Grandmaster went to apologize, and he thought it went okay. He gave Loki her knives back, apologized for taking them, and asked to kiss her. Her face had immediately turned to terror, and the Grandmaster hastily added she didn’t have to, because of _course_ she didn’t have to. She relaxed, and smiled at him, very slightly, and her fire was back. 

\---

The Grandmaster was in the middle of a meeting the next day, sitting upon his throne, when Loki rushed in. The Grandmaster stood up, eyebrows knit together. “Loki? Is it important?”

“Very,” she said, and went right up to him, shoving past all the probably very important people he was talking to. She grabbed his face and kissed him. 

Just full on made out with him in front of everyone. 

He kissed back enthusiastically, one hand going to her waist, the other to her hair. Before she got too tangled up, she put a hand on his chest and pulled away. She smirked at him, and walked right back out the door. 

Loki sat in her room, practicing throwing knives at the wall for a while until the Grandmaster came knocking. 

“Come on in,” she invited. 

“You, uh, kissed me. You are a very, ah, marvelous kisser,” he said. “You know, you could have-have stuck around.”

Loki smiled at him innocently. “But you were probably very busy.”

“You-” the Grandmaster broke off with a smile and a shake of his head. “So, does this mean we’re, ah, good? Is this a, hm, a thing I can expect again in the future?”

“Sure,” Loki said. “If you want.”

“Oh, yeah, oh, definitely,” the Grandmaster said.

\---

Sakaarian parties were  _ loud _ and  _ bright _ and Loki hated it. 

They stood in the corner, absently fiddling with their hands. The Grandmaster danced over, all wide grins and neon paint. He held out his hand invitingly. 

“Ah, dance with me?” He invited. 

“Don’t know how,” Loki said over the music. 

“You don’t know how-how to dance?” The Grandmaster said incredulously. 

They shrugged. “Never bothered to learn. Besides, it’s loud here.”

“You don’t, uh, like it?”

“No.”

The Grandmaster stood beside him, and waved a hand. There was a rush of air, and the sounds of the party were immediately muffled, barely even audible. “Better?”

Loki smiled at him. “Yah. Thanks.”

“I just want you to, ah, enjoy yourself, have fun. Not feel like. Like you’re, uh, trapped, or something.” The Grandmaster held out his hand to Loki. “Want me to teach you how to dance?”

They took his hand. “Sure.”

“Here, what you- what you do is, just-” the Grandmaster was laughing, spinning Loki around. “You just  _ dance _ .”

Loki was laughing too. “This is a very thorough instruction, huh?”

“You-” the Grandmaster waved a finger at them. “You just- you’re beautiful when you laugh. Happy is, ah, is a good look on you.”

Loki grinned and laughed and leaned in to kiss him. The Grandmaster kissed them back, and whispered into Loki’s ear, “this place was, ah, getting stale anyways. Want to leave- go somewhere quieter?”

“Where did you have in mind?”

“There’s a-a balcony in my room, overlooks the entire, um, city.” The Grandmaster made hand gestures that didn’t make any sense to Loki as an attempt to describe something. “It’s- it’s really, uh, beautiful.”

“Sounds perfect,” Loki mumbled, and the Grandmaster led them away.

\---

The balcony looked over the city, the shining wormholes in the Sakaar sky providing light. The railing was wood, surprisingly, and Loki absently started carving their name into it with their knives.

The Grandmaster leaned on the railing beside them. “Are your knives enchanted?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Loki hummed with a small smile.

“Did you enchant them?” The Grandmaster asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Loki said again, this time looking right at him with a teasing grin.

“Can I touch your arm?” The Grandmaster asked.

“Yes,” Loki said, and the Grandmaster set a hand on Loki’s arm as they looked over the city together, the portals glowing brighter than the stars. 

\---

The Grandmaster started leaving parties early, because Loki hated the strobe lights and loud music and all the  _ noise  _ and  _ light  _ and it was overwhelming, and then he started skipping them all together. He spent time with Loki, wandering the city, looking at the city over the balcony, playing games in the throne room, falling into bed together-

“Tell me about your knives,” the Grandmaster said in the morning, twirling a strand of Loki’s hair in his fingers.

Loki looked at him. “Why?”

“Because they’re important to-to you, and you’re, ah, important to me. That means I-I want to know everything about them. About, uh, you.”

Loki shifted forwards, and grabbed one of his knives off the bedside table. He stared at it for a bit, then handed it to the Grandmaster. “There’s a secret message on it. They’re enchanted so only I can reveal it.”

The Grandmaster looked at the the blade with a keen eye. “Ooh, strong magic. I can, ah, well, sense it.”

“I’ve spent almost a thousand years building it up, I would hope so.”

“How do you, ah, reveal the message?”

“Run your finger across the blade,” Loki said. “It won’t show up for you, though.”

The Grandmaster did it anyways, and the knife was left blank. “Coded to your, ah, unique magic signature?”

“And my fingerprint,” Loki admitted. 

The Grandmaster handed it back. “I could mimic that,” he pointed out.

“But you won’t.”

“I won’t,” he agreed. “That gets rid of the-the, uh, challenge. The idea that you’ll maybe- you might show me, one day.”

“I might,” Loki agreed. “But not today.”

“Who gave them to you?” The Grandmaster asked.

Loki set his knife back on the bedside table, and looked at the Grandmaster with a grin. “You really want to know about my knives? What will you give me in return?”

“Anything you desire. Uh, a ship, a moon, a throne. Whatever you-you want, I’ll find a way to give it to you, hm.”

Loki blinked, and tried not to blush. He put a hand on the Grandmaster’s chest. “I’ll tell you when I figure out what I want,” he teased. 

The Grandmaster laughed, and that promise was enough.

\---

Another reason Loki had never liked the parties was the social aspect. He wasn’t good at group socialization. He was okay with being around people, but he wasn’t very good at interacting with them. Never had been. 

He awkwardly sat on a couch, surrounded by people. It wasn’t a party, just one of the many social gatherings around the palace of Sakaar. The Grandmaster was off doing dictator things, and Loki was hit with the realization he had no other friends, or even someone he knew. So his options were sitting in his room or sitting out here. And his room was getting boring. 

Loki looked up, and he wanted to throw  _ someone _ out a window. Didn’t matter who. Then someone asked him about himself, and, well, that was his favorite topic.

So he started telling them a story. A story whose sting had already faded, where it didn’t hurt to talk about. He left out the details that did hurt. A story about Frost Giants, and stupid king-to-be brothers, and falling. 

Eventually, Loki looked up and saw-

Thor. What the fuck was Thor doing here.

“Loki, Loki,” he hissed as Loki strode up to him. Loki shushed him. “What? You’re still alive?” He demanded.  _ Why is he in a chair?  _

“Of course I’m alive!” Thor looked hurt at the prospect Loki thought he was dead. 

“What are you doing here?” Loki asked. Maybe it was a trick. Maybe real Thor was dead. 

“What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m stuck in this stupid chair.”  Nope, this was definitely Thor, and he definitely wasn’t dead. “Where’s your chair?”

“I didn’t get a chair!” Loki said. Loki’s first impression to the Grandmaster had been telling him and his entire planet to go fuck off, so what had  _ Thor  _ done that warranted getting a chair?

Loki talked to him for a little, and ignored that little voice inside him that was practically  _ sobbing  _ with joy, because Thor was  _ alive  _ and he was  _ here _ . The rest of Loki was determinedly apathetic about Thor, determinedly. Loki wasn’t happy to see him  _ at all _ .

The Grandmaster came up, and said, “what are you whispering about?”

Loki practically jumped away from Thor. 

The Grandmaster brushed it off, and Loki barely paid attention to the rest of the conversation, only giving a few inputs that he didn’t really think too much about, too overwhelmed with Thor not being dead, and Thor being on Sakaar, and that look Thor was giving him when the Grandmaster not-so subtly implied Loki and the Grandmaster had totally fucked, and it just didn’t seem real.

Then reality hit and Thor was taken away, and Loki realized Thor was not a food, but he was, in every sense of the word, a fighter.

\---

Loki approached the Grandmaster in his room and held the point of her knife to his neck. “I decided what I want in exchange for telling you about my knives,” she purred.

The Grandmaster blinked at her, and started to give her a goofy grin. “Are you, uh, threatening me or-or flirting with me? You know what, ah, doesn’t matter, it’s hot, keep-keep doing it.”

“Thor lives,” she says. “That’s my price.”

The Grandmaster tilted his head at her. “Really?  _ That’s  _ what you want?”

“Call me sentimental, but I don’t want my brother lying dead in the floor of your arena,” Loki said bluntly. “But he’ll get all pissy if he knows I did this for him. He can try to win his freedom in a fair fight, but he’s safer here. So just make sure he stays alive. Make sure he stays  _ safe. _ ”

The Grandmaster gave her a funny look. “Are you sure? That’s what you want?”

“Yes.”

“Then you got it.”

\---

Loki took the form Thor knew best when she went to see him, no matter how uncomfortable it was, because it didn’t seem like a good idea to show off her shape shifting when Thor had just lost his one good magic relic.  _ Hey, look at me, showing off my magic shapeshifting powers! Also I fucked the guy keeping you prisoner, that’s why I don’t have a chair. Here’s my brilliant plan that involves you doing all the work! _

She didn’t spring that on him. She tried to talk to him about Hela, about Odin, about maybe working together. Thor just threw rocks at her.

\---

Of fucking course the Champion was  _ the motherfucking Hulk _ .

Loki could barely watch the fight, but forced himself to. He needed to watch, needed to keep his magic just on the tips of his fingers, because if it went too bad and it didn’t look like Thor would make it, he was going to teleport down there himself to slap the idiot.

Just when it was looking like Thor might win, he was covered in lightning and rage and the crowd was chanting, and Thor might  _ actually win _ -

He froze, and fell over. The Hulk  _ landed on him. _

Loki looked on in terror, and then looked at the Grandmaster. The control to Thor’s ‘obedience disk’ was in his hand, and it was so, so obvious he’d activated it. He didn’t even try to hide his guilt when he saw Loki looking at him.

“Loki-” he started, and Loki stood up and left the room. 

\---

Loki screamed, and he kicked the wall, and he threw his knives at the ceiling, and he hit his head against the door, and he  _ screamed  _ until his voice was sore. 

There was a knock on his door. Loki opened it as angrily as he could, and glared at the Grandmaster. “What the Hel would you do that for?” Loki demanded. “You- you fucking  _ liar _ \- you promised to keep him  _ alive _ , and you let the  _ Hulk  _ land on him! That is the  _ opposite of keeping someone safe. _ ”

“I thought, ah, the-the sooner the fight was over, the sooner he, uh, would be alright,” the Grandmaster tried.

“Bullshit,” Loki said simply. “Thor was holding his own, he was  _ fine _ , and  _ you  _ got upset at the idea of him beating your Champion, so you zapped him. Is this how you always win fights?”

“No,” the Grandmaster whispered. 

“You hurt him,” Loki said firmly. “You purposefully put him in a situation where you had an advantage over him, and then you exploited that, and-”

“Loki, he’s fine,” the Grandmaster insisted. “He, ah, he and my Champion have, um, dual-Championship? He’s resting, getting his, uh, his wounds tended to, and-”

“Leave me alone,” Loki muttered. “Just… give me some time to process what the fuck you just did, alright?”

The Grandmaster nodded sadly, and closed the door. Loki looked up at the ceiling at his knives, and sighed. He kicked the wall, and they fell down. He picked one up, and revealed the inscription, over and over and over again.

\---

Loki slammed her knives down on the armrest of the Grandmaster’s throne. 

“I’ve already revealed the inscription,” she said bluntly. “Now read it.”

He picked one up gingerly, like it was something precious. He mouthed the words as he read it, then looked at Loki.

“Thor was the first person I came out to,” she said. “Eight hundred years ago, give or take. He gave these to me the next day. They are the most important thing I own.”

“I, ah, I’m honored you showed this to me,” the Grandmaster said. “So everytime you-you said that someone important to you gave you your knives…” 

“I was talking about my brother. The one you let the _Hulk land_ _on_.”

“Does, uh, this mean we’re, that we’re good?” The Grandmaster asked.

Loki paused. She tapped her foot against the ground, “I’m just fulfilling my half of the deal,” she said, picking at her hands. “You kept him alive, I told you about my knives. Happy now?”

“No,” the Grandmaster said. “I, well, we were so close… I don’t want to screw that up.”

Loki didn’t respond. She just walked away.

\---

Within a few days, Thor escaped.

Loki wanted to laugh, but they were being summoned to the Grandmaster, so maybe now wasn’t the time to laugh. 

They were so going to be executed. Probably with the freaky melt stick.  _ Good going, Loki _ , they thought to themself.  _ Maybe next time you break up with someone who runs an entire planet, you get off the planet first! Or let them down easy! _

The Grandmaster was upset, rambling about how his Champion had escaped. So Thor had stolen the Hulk during his escape. Loki was a little proud of their brother. 

“You know who I’m blaming?” The Grandmaster insisted. He looked right at Loki.

“Grandmaster, I-” they started, maybe to slither out of being dead, maybe to apologize, maybe to offer to get Thor back. 

Topaz handed the Grandmaster the freaky melt stick, and Loki barely refrained from running out of the room. 

“He was interrupting, that’s not a capital offense!” The Grandmaster said. He looked at Loki again, and said, “well… not anymore.”

Loki gulped. Their stomach felt funny, and they knew it was a whole mess of things that had lead to this, but some part of Loki was more friendly to the Grandmaster than not. Another significant part of them was decidedly more-than-friendly. 

Loki offered to get Thor back, because really,  _ really _ , it was safer if he was here, but mostly because they were done fighting with the Grandmaster, they wanted to talk it all out, even if they sucked at it. They referred to the Grandmaster as  _ dear friend _ , trying to say without saying it  _ I’m not ready to go back to whatever we were, but I want to work towards that.  _

Then the damn scrapper said she could get Thor back faster, and so Loki’s pride wouldn’t allow them to be outdone, and they ended up in chains, so that happened.

\---

Leaving Sakaar had to be done. 

Loki didn’t know why it hurt so much. 

\---

After Ragnarok, Loki stared out the window of the Ark, where he thought Sakaar might be. He twirled a knife in his hand for the repetitive, familiar motion, and for the starlight that bounced off the blade. The inscription flashed gold at him.

Thor sat down next to him. “Hey,” he said gently.

“Hey,” Loki replied softly. The air between them felt like broken glass. 

“You alright?”

“Yah.” Loki kept looking out the window. “Well. Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“What’s love like?” Loki asked. He wanted to know if maybe someone could tell him if the feeling in him matched the description. Or if it could turn into that. Or if it used to be that. Honestly, he didn’t understand it. 

He might have loved the Grandmaster. But who really knew. 

“I don’t know,” Thor responded. 

“Yah,” Loki sighed. “That’s what I thought.”

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is witchlightsands, my marvel sideblog is genderfluid-loki and i Gotta Stop Doing This To Myself


End file.
